Frayed Edges and Fault Lines
by kimanioverthinks
Summary: Sophie Kerr's life is full of fault lines, and the edges are frayed. And she wonders where it all began. oneshot


**Disclaimer: I don't own Beautiful People. But I wish I did. I'll put it on my Christmas list. Maybe Santa likes watching BP too. Maybe if I'd owned it, I'd continue the series. (: Not just cut it off where Ben leaves Karen at the fashion show. ):**

-

Sophie Kerr doesn't cry as Nicholas Fiske walks out of her life. She doesn't think that's necessary. They've had their fun, but all good things must come to an end. She's learnt this from Karen's many relationships.

"I could never hate you," she tells him. _I could never love you either_, she thinks. She hasn't spoken the words, but he seems to have heard them. And they hang in the air anyways; making it thick and heavy. It doesn't make it any harder to breathe though. And her heart doesn't break and her eyes don't water.

They've had plenty of good memories. Kissing him in front of the whole class is one. But she can't remember the rest. And maybe that's a good thing.

She watches as Nicky walks away, leaving size ten footprints in the snow. New flakes fall to join the old ones and she knows his tracks will be gone by morning. And so will he, she reminds herself. The truth doesn't sting as much as she'd like it to.

She's going to miss him for sure, but he does need a break. She'd like to blame herself, but as Nicky's said before, _it's not her fault_. It's not her fault, and it's not his. She'd like to blame her mother, or Julian. But, she can't either.

She'd like to believe she loved him, though, but she can't.

Maybe he wasn't the one, she decides, as he disappears from view and from her life. Maybe the right one is right under her nose, and she can't see it.

-

Chris Pritchett is what Nicholas Fiske was not. He wasn't rich. He didn't have the right friends. He didn't welcome her with open arms. Quite the opposite actually. Sophie thought Chris hated her. And she'd very well convinced herself that.

Then they'd become friends. There was an empty ache inside her heart, as she yearns for more than what she has. Chris seems happy though. They're helping each other out after school. She's failing Calculus and he's failing Literature.

Looking over a picture she'd developed of Chris, she could trace his jaw without looking at the picture. Describe how his eyes looked as the light hit them. The way his teeth glinted as he smiled. The way he ran his hands through his hair when he didn't know what to say, or when words weren't enough.

She thought about his lips – what it'd be like to kiss Chris. Soft, she imagined, like he was scared of hurting her at first. But then everything would change.

Chris wasn't the kind to be what you expected anyways, she concludes. _He'd probably shock us both._

She kisses Chris. And it's exactly the way she pictures it. _Perfect_. And when it's over she wants more. Like drinking salted water. The more you drank, the thirstier you got. She knows this won't last forever. Chris has problems. And she has problems.

Maybe they'd help each other through it, she hopes. But she knows she's wrong.

It lasts only a couple weeks more. And she's even more broken than before.

_Did it hurt this much when Nicky left_? she asks herself. And the answer makes her feel like an awful person.

-

When her father comes back, he surprises her. She doesn't know what she wants. Maybe it'd be easier to go home. But _where_ is home? It's not New Mexico. Dreams are conceived in New Mexico; never hatched. It's not here either, she decides.

Maybe when she's old enough not to screw-over every choice she makes she can decide where's home. But until then, she's just a little girl. Who misses her daddy and needs her mommy in her life.

But where does that leave her? she asks herself.

Karen isn't going back. She can't stand to see dad. She thinks his fault why their family is like this anyways. All split down the middle with tiny fault lines and frayed at the edges.

Maybe Karen is right. Maybe the family can't be fixed. Maybe she should just give up trying to find perfection in every shot and stick to grasping tightly to the good things. Maybe that's all she'll ever be able to hold tight enough anyway.

Her mom holds her and Karen tight, like she'd do when they were kids. They sit on the couch with the fan on and cry to each other. And even though no words are being spoken, they're all listening to each other. This makes Sophie feel better and she can swear she feels the fault lines closing themselves up again.

But it only takes something as small as a court hearing to tear them open again. She's given up trying. Her dad can take her. Her mom can keep her. As long as she doesn't have to testify against either of them. She's given up. Everyone knows it.

She cries herself to sleep for a couple nights, as the fault lines rip themselves open and she wonders, just for a minute, when did this all begin?

-

**A/N: Another one-shot down. (: If you guys haven't seen Beautiful People, then I highly recommend it. It's one of those soaps that never made it past the middle of the second season. It ran for a while back in 2005-2006. I watched a couple episodes now and then… and then had this immense urge to watch all of it. It's not on DVD, but you can find all the episodes to date on YouTube. I think you'll get them by typing in: **Beautiful People 1-1 **or something like that. The same user has all of them, though.**


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